Ancient Philosophy lecture notes 2022
Lecture 1: Pre-socratics
Historical overview:
Presocratics:
Ancient Greek and roman philosophy 600BCE – 600AD
There are no writings from the presocratic-Aristoteles presents
He often mixes presentation with criticism
But also, the thoughts of Aristotle were transferred many times bc of the material they were written on, some
are lost
Thales(early6thcent. BC)
Anaximander(6thcent. BC)
Anaximenes(6thcent. BC)
Xenophanes(6th–5thcent. BC)
Pythagoras(6th–5thcent. BC)
Heraclitus(6th–5thcent. BC)
Summary:
new ‘kind of investigation’ -> (natural) philosophy
Search for the principle (archai)
several ideas on how to turn one principle into several things but not on the why question,
beyond mere materiality
change one principle into several things by means of contraries like condensation, hot and
coldness
attention to change and motion
Ionian natural philosophy vs. Eleatic metaphysics
Archai (pl. (Archè sg.))
the beginning first principle of the world in ancient Greek philosophy.
The answer to ‘of which’, ‘in which’, ‘from which’
Building blocks
Thales (ap. 500BCE) (first philosopher according to Aristotle)
The archai for him is water
Believes that soul (referred to as Psyché) is motion -> everything that moves has a soul (magnets
according to him also have a soul bc it moves the iron)
, Some other philosophers support the idea of water being the archai – Hyppolytes even goes as far as
saying that water is the beginning and the end of the entire world (cosmological explanation)
“All things are full of God” - perhaps there is life and motion everywhere
Anaximander (student of Thales)
Disagrees with Thales: not just water is the principle, no element alone is the principle but some
‘infinite/indeterminate’ called Apeiron
everything can change into everything
he still emphasizes the importance of water (humans generated from animals and animals generated
out of the warmed moisture of the sun)
Anaximenes
believes the Archai is the air (everything comes from the air) -> when thinned it becomes fire, when
condensed wind, then clouds, then water
explains how one single element can be the basis for other natural things such as fire, clouds, wind
does not agree on the indeterminate but on the boundless nature with Anaximander since air is also
indefinite because one cannot touch it is invisible
Xenophases
Archai: earth, sometimes he also adds water to it emphasizing the contrary qualities
of dry and wet
God is eternal: most un-human like (disagrees that God/s look human-like)
There must only be one if he is the best and strongest
Maybe humans cannot grasp the reality – he was in doubt about everything
Pythagoras
Initiated a form of life that focused on reincarnation, vegetarianism, rituals, sacrifices
‘Neopythagorism’ influential over several centuries (claims that the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle
was – in one way or another from Pythagoras)
Believed in immortality of souls
Emphasizes on mathematics and the value of numbers to understand reality
The thoughts of Pythagoras inspired further thinking and developing theories in metaphysics
Sophistic movement: everything seems to be relativist, there is no absolute (wind is cold, other person
thinks it is warm-> relative)
Heraclitus
Archai is fire (fire->air->water->earth ->water->air->fire)
Change is the only permanent thing (everything changes)
Fire is a symbol of change (destroys and rekindles things)
The existence of everything according to Heraclitus depends on the tension of opposite forces exactly
balancing out
Monism (everything is one)
2nd Lecture: Pre-socartics
Parmenides
Everything is one (continues Heraclitus) unity of opposites is important
Often credited with being the inventor of metaphysics (as the study of being, what is existence? Is
there a difference in existence)
Definition of being: There is only being no not-being, one cannot think of nothingness
Can only think of what is but not about what is not
Something can't generate out of nothing, therefore no things can
, Everything is being, the reality of the world is ‘one being’ an unchanging, indestructible whole ->
ungenerated, whole and continuous, motionless (no change), complete
Monism
Change: is an illusion – appearances change but not the essence
Anaxagoras
Agrees nothing can come to be out of nothing, but how do trees exist, how do we come into existence
Everything is already there and comes together to form different things, it does not come from
nothingness
Tree (not just wood, but also sugar, leaves, water) everything is in everything just in different ratios if u
would cut down many, many trees you get cheese bc even a small part of it is cheese
At the start of the universe, a big ball of everything that ever existed will ever exist
Coming into existence is mixing these components perishing is segregation of these parts
Introduces mind (immaterial) mind is boundless, mixed with no
Empedocles
Also believes about mixing is coming into existence and dividing is perishing, so everything that is
already is (but split up out of four elements)
Things that are, already are but not indefinite but from four elements
Two cosmic principles govern the material world: Love (combines everything in a whole) and strive
(segregates everything into the four elemental layers)
Atomists: Leucippus, Democritus
Archai: atoms, they called it infinite small beings
All atoms are made out of the same material/stuff but vary in shape, so when they collide some stay
together more easily due to their shape and form
They travel in the infinite void (no bottom, top, middle, etc.)
(DE) When they encounter/entangle – a collection of them make up the fire, water, plants, and even
man and the world
(DE)They are too stable to be divided
(LE) things changed into each other; the totality of things is boundless
The soul provides animals with motion; breath is a sign of life bc the atoms move/exchange
(DE) unclear which judgments are true and which are not (same animals do not make the same
judgments) -> no set of judgments is more true than another -> either nothing is true, or it is unclear
what is true
(DE) even applies differently shaped atoms to taste (sweet-> round and sizable atoms)
Acts again sophistic movement (what is good appears to me, it is relative) -> structure of atoms
determines absolute things like taste, warm, cold, etc.
3rd lecture: Plato: Meno
Plato:
Scholar of Socrates
1 Text:
, Meno asks Socrates if virtue can be taught, is it even teachable or just a result of practice, or already comes in
the nature of being human?
Socrates does not know because for him to know it he would have to know what virtue really is, but he doesn’t
“If I do not know what something is how could I know what qualities it possesses?”
2nd Text:
Meno now also thinks that he does not know what virtue really is even though he thought he knew
Socrates:” I myself do not have the answer when I perplex others, but I am more perplexed than anyone when
I cause perplexity in others.2 -> if something you thought is logical or true and it causes confusion in others it
will also confuse you bc it did not seem confusing to you (the information)
Socrates wants to seek out what virtue is – Meno says how is one able to look for something if one does not
know what to look for
Socrates: “He cannot search for what he knows – since he knows it, there is no need to search nor for what he
does not know, for he does not know what to look for.”
Some priests and priestesses say: our human soul is immortal; it comes to an end -> dying; it is reborn but
never destroyed -> conclusion one has to live their life as piously (fromm) as possible
Because the soul has seen everything it also learned everything so it can simply recollect things it knew before
(f. ex. Can recollect the knowledge about virtue)
3rd Text:
Searching and learning are as a whole recollection
Falling into perpexibility is good because now one longs to know (the answer)
When nothing is teachable bc we just recollect our knowledge from within us then virtue cannot be taught
Plato
Athens 428 BC born
lively sophist movement in Athenian educated circles
works: Stephanus pagination e.g., Theaetetus 148e1-151d6
he never appears in his written dialogue
Plato’s rhetorical elegance:
It is not Socrates who introduces the elements of the discourse but a stranger
Now it is some “priests and priestesses” who introduce the immortality of the soul (which will make
recollection possible and solve the problem)
Plato: Socrates:
main protagonist
Aporetic dialogues with his teacher Socrates (the end without a solution)
The shift of topics from ethics to politics to metaphysics
Plato Socratic methods
The Socratic method: elenctic (proves someone wrong)
The midwifery of Socrates: maieutic (leading questions to solve the problem or rather work
together with the other person)
1. Knowledge is perception
2. Knowledge is true opinion
3. Knowledge is true opinion with (logos: “account”)
